by J. L. Lyon
Everyone shrunk from the light of her Gladius as she left the basilica, a lioness hunting her prey.
40
301 RETREATED TO THE stillness of his room at the Specter Spire, away from the accusing eyes of his men and the shock that spread through the building with news of the admiral’s death. He had been a mentor to them all, a greatly respected leader who could never be replaced. And with his death, 301 had unfortunately been placed in that position. He would ascend as the sole leader of the force—something he doubted the others would accept, given his actions in the underground.
Given time, one of them would eventually betray the admiral’s promise to him to keep the truth quiet. Fortunately, all would be settled before they got that chance. Already he saw the World System as his past, even though the future was shrouded in darkness. He still wanted to flee to the Wilderness with Grace, but no longer believed it possible. If he managed to save her from death, it would likely be an exchange: her life for his.
As the day waxed and then began to wane, he slowly came to accept that it could indeed be his last.
He sat in darkness for a long while, contemplating his restored memories and exploring them like an album of photographs—snapshots of people and events that were now his. Truly his. It seemed cruel that he should regain such a treasure only to enjoy it for such a short amount of time, and yet he was grateful. Grateful for the memory of his mother’s smile; for the warmth of her affection; for his father’s guiding hands as he taught him some skill with the Gladius; for the feeling of safety surrounded by people that loved him. Yes, he was grateful…but sad. Sad that he had remembered it only after everything was gone. They had been dead now for fifteen years.
Maybe in whatever comes after this, he thought, I will see them again.
At some point during his contemplations, the lights kicked back on. All power in the entire city had been down for hours after the incident at the palace, and so far as 301 knew no one could really explain why. The blackout had been engineered to assist McCall’s assassination attempt, but how he achieved it was a mystery.
301 turned slightly to gaze out his window, where power ignited block-by-block, the same as it had gone off—almost like someone had simply flipped a switch.
Part of him wanted to remain hidden within his room for the remainder of the day, but that was not how he wanted to spend his last hours on earth. In fact, he knew exactly where he wanted to be. He looked down at himself, suddenly smelling the stink he had carried with him from the underground. Despite the length of time he had been back, he had been too preoccupied to even notice.
The least he could do, before going to his destination, was to take a shower and put on a fresh uniform. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as he stripped off the soiled clothes. Likely, they could not be salvaged. He left them in a pile and made his way to the shower, enjoying it for the last time. Even if he miraculously survived, he wouldn’t likely feel hot water like that on his skin for a long while. The rest of the world did not have such luxuries.
A few minutes later, steam still rising from his skin, 301 returned to the outer room and picked up the old uniform to dispose of it. A small object fell out and bounced when it hit the carpet: his father’s ring. He knelt and reached for it, remembering his father’s words, If something should happen to me, you will need it to finish what we have started here.
301 stared into the blue stone with newfound interest. He had always valued it for the sentimentality, but was it possible that this small token he had always carried was more than just a connection to his past? Could it hold the key to finishing Jonathan Charity’s work? He laughed lightheartedly to himself. It was only a ring...but he was tired of hiding it.
He slipped it on his finger, then went into his bedroom for a fresh uniform. He dressed with care, like a man headed to his own funeral, clipping on his medals and badges, the rank pin for his collar, and his weapons belt. Finally, he was ready.
A knock sounded on his door and he groaned, knowing without even asking who waited on the other side.
“It’s me, Captain,” Derek’s muffled voice declared. “Please…I’m here to explain.”
301 thought Derek had done quite enough explaining, but—as with Alexander before—he could not allow his partner to become suspicious of his plans. Derek felt safe now that Grace was in custody, and 301 would prefer he stay that way.
He felt a pang of regret, seeing Derek as an obstacle to overcome. If only he could have trusted the man…what a team they would have made. But where 301 was headed, Derek would not follow. Their friendship had been the most valuable thing he had gained from his life in the World System, brief though it was. He found himself echoing Grace’s wish in the tunnels: I wish we had been born in a different time.
301 opened the door to admit his ashen-faced partner into the room, apprehensive about the coming conversation. The last time they had spoken—right after Derek’s betrayal—had not gone so well.
Derek’s own uneasiness was plain when he began in a deeply apologetic tone, “301, I just want you to know that—”
301 held up a hand to silence him, “You don’t have to explain any more, Derek. I understand why you did it…I just wish you had respected me enough to let me make my own choice.”
“You had fallen under her spell, Captain,” Derek replied. “That much was clear from what you did at the Communications Tower. She is the key to bringing the rebellion to an end. I did what I had to.”
“Yet it appears Alexander went back on his word,” 301 said, motioning to the window. The smoking pyres had not gone out even with the power down. Electricity wasn’t needed to spread destruction—only gunpowder and flame.
301 noted the line in Derek’s jaw as he gritted his teeth in frustration. Well, at least he does not deny it.
“The MWR believes Ellis Crenshaw was behind Grace’s rise to command,” Derek said. “And until he has both their heads, the purge goes on.”
And how many others are out there like those civilians I saved today? 301 thought sadly. How many others who will be subjected to Donalson’s horrors, without anyone to save them? That was why Grace had turned herself in, to protect those people who even now burned on those smoking pyres. All for nothing. All for a madman’s ploy.
“Once he has Crenshaw, perhaps he will put out these fires,” 301 said, though he didn’t necessarily believe it. As long as Alexander believed Silent Thunder a threat, the purge would continue. “But what then, Derek? What do you think will happen when the war with the Ruling Council begins?”
“I have fought a war before.”
“Against rebels, holed up in one city,” 301 said. “This will be different. We cannot outgun the Imperial Conglomerate, not like you did Justus at Rome. We both know what Alexander did once Rome was subdued. Can you imagine what he will do to every city that Sullivan has taken? The streets will run red with the blood of the innocent!”
“Wars have costs, Captain. That is just the way of the world.”
“All those people in Rome did not need to die,” 301 insisted. He pointed to the window, to the fires that represented so much torture and death. “Those people out there—our people—do not need to die. Why can’t you see that Napoleon Alexander has lost control, Derek? Power has driven him mad!”
“That is not for me to decide.”
“Yet betraying me to capture Grace Sawyer…that was yours to decide.”
Derek paused for a moment, then sighed with resignation, “I’m sorry that my choice put us at odds, Captain. But I don’t regret making it. Especially not if the MWR’s plan succeeds.”
“It will never work,” 301 shook his head. “There must have been seven or eight hundred blades at the Communications tower. If even a fraction of them are present in the Central Square then the Great Army won’t be able to contain them.”
“The execution is not only to catch a few straggling members, surely you see that,” Derek said. “History remembers Jonathan Charity’s fall as th
e event that led to the ruin of Silent Thunder, but I disagree. It was the burning of Lauren Charity that finally brought the end, that broke the spirits of their supporters and drove the majority of them into hiding. Brutal though it was, her death was what defeated the rebellion. Grace Sawyer will serve that same purpose.”
301 held back his desire to lash out in anger over mention of his mother’s cruel death. He had been there, had felt the heat of the flames that extinguished her life and snuffed her light from the world. Now Alexander wanted to repeat history. 301 would be present for this one as well, but if he had his way, it would not be Grace who burned.
“I know you love her, Captain,” Derek said, and the shallow rebuttal 301 had prepared caught in his throat. “Or at least, you think you do. But she is in the hands of Napoleon Alexander, and there is nothing we can do to stop her from dying in the Central Square tonight. This is her fate…the fate she chose when she came back to instigate war in this city. You and I were instruments of that fate…nothing more.”
“You can’t wash her blood from your hands, Derek,” 301 said quietly. “No more than I can.” Neither can I wash away the blood of Kacie Jordan. Of Jacob Sawyer and the rebel major, of Wayne Collins and the faces for which I have no names. Even Elena Wilson’s children, likely dead as a result of their mother’s betrayal and his broken promise. He had left it to another to bring her the news, and wondered if she regretted it now...if she felt the weight of their loss like he did. How many would die before all was done?
One more, he decided. Just one.
“Perhaps you should consider the possibility that things will be better for you after she is dead.”
“If you knew the power of what I feel for her you would never say that.”
“The effect will fade,” Derek nodded as if to encourage him. “Time heals all wounds.”
“Some wounds are fatal.”
“There will be other women,” Derek said, placing a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “The sooner you forget her, the better. You have no choice now but to let her go.”
301 didn’t respond, for he knew there was no way to make Derek understand: there was no letting go. She was all he had left…the only thing in his life that truly mattered.
“We should talk,” Derek said, suddenly returning to the self-confident and professional soldier 301 was accustomed to, “about the old man.”
“He’s dead,” 301 spat, suppressing a pang of sorrow. “What is there to talk about?”
“Our mentor—the man we trusted, relied on, and made us what we are—turns out to have been working for our enemy all along and you think there’s nothing to talk about? Did you ever suspect anything?”
“No,” 301 said, and at least in that he could be honest. McCall had never given them any indication that he might not be fully devoted to the World System. In hindsight there were small things: his orders not to follow the supplier contact despite 301’s objections, his reaction to Jacob Sawyer’s death, his failure to set off that bomb to destroy the Communications Tower even though a rebel made it through their defenses. He was not like any other commanding officer 301 knew of in the World System, that was certain. Even his last conversation with 301 before he had gone after Grace…he recalled the old man’s words: There are always consequences to the path we choose, Captain. I hope you’re ready for them.
Yes, the signs were there…but never enough to make him question the man’s allegiance.
“He was just a good spy,” 301 finished.
Derek nodded, “Makes you wonder if there are any others lurking nearby. If someone as high as McCall was a spy, what does that say about our ability to detect them?”
301 doubted there were any more quite like McCall. He had been placed strategically to kill Napoleon Alexander at that particular moment. But why now? All the times he had been in the MWR’s presence…why wait so long to attempt it? Had Grand Admiral Donalson not intervened, he would have succeeded, but 301 could think of several occasions where the admiral might have done it instead. It almost baffled him more than learning that McCall was, in fact, a rebel.
“Anyway, we will have to talk about the future of Specter now that the old man is gone,” Derek said. “A conversation that can wait until after this is all over.” He gave 301 a hard look, “I assume you’re ready early because you mean to go and visit her.”
301 smiled wryly. There was no point in lying. “Yes. I’m going there now.”
“I hear she is to be granted no visitors.”
“Do you think that will stop me?”
Derek sighed, “No. It wouldn’t stop me either. Just…be careful, Captain. The Elect are not at all what they seem. If she can gain an opportunity to use you, she will not hesitate.”
She’s not the monster you think she is, 301 wanted to say. We are the monsters. But such words would simply inflame Derek’s suspicions against him, and right now he needed the man’s trust for just a little longer.
“Thanks, Derek. I’ll keep that in mind.” He started for the door and Derek followed, but as he turned right in the hall to go toward the exit Derek stopped him.
“You do understand why I had to do it, Captain.”
301 barely hid a grimace. He did understand, all to well. It was the kind of thing he might have done himself, three months before. But that was before everything had changed; before he learned who he was—not just his name or where he came from, but what he was made of. Grace had revealed the true color of his soul, and he had been running from the truth of it ever since.
The time had come to stop running.
“I do, Derek. But it will take a while for us to move past this, I hope you know that.”
“Yes,” he replied. “I can handle it, as long as there is hope that we can.”
301 nodded, “I know what would make a good start.”
“What?”
“Do not warn the palace that I am coming.”
41
SULLIVAN WAITED OUTSIDE THE basilica’s medical facility, watching with deep concern as the doctors attempted to save Councilor Drake’s life. He could see very little, but every now and then he caught a glimpse of Drake on the table, lifeless and pale.
He heard light footsteps behind him and turned to see the lithe and graceful form of his Chief of Command emerge from the darkness. Her new white uniform was stained with splotches of blood and her expression was grim. She spoke in a whisper so low he had to tilt his ear to hear her, “I’m sorry, sir. I know this isn’t the best time, but I have news. We found the assassins.”
Sullivan remained focused on the scene in the medical facility, “I’m listening.”
“They were Alexander’s men, wearing World System insignias,” she said. “Likely they knew this to be a suicide mission. But from their weapons and equipment it appears that they have been planning such an event for quite some time, probably since before the separation. I checked their communications devices, and it appears they were only sent a mission code. No target, no specifications, just a code.”
“Whatever you’re dancing around, Chief Aurora, just say it.”
“They already had their target before you ever betrayed the World System, sir, just as I had my orders before you sent me my evacuation protocol,” she replied. “Likely Alexander had them in place months ago in case he needed to terminate the Ruling Council on short notice. If so, I expect there is one assassination team for every Ruling Council member. This was only the first.”
The emperor sighed, “So Alexander gives us the choice to live in fear that death will come upon us at any moment, or to hole up indoors for the rest of our lives. Either way gives him an advantage.”
“What of Justus, sir?” she asked.
Sullivan hesitated for a moment, and then spoke with a hollow voice, “You have my leave to proceed, Chief Aurora. Send that rebel into the hornet’s nest and tell him to bring the whole thing crashing down.”
She nodded and left to carry out his orders. However, no sooner had she g
one than another came to replace her—the very last man he wanted to see. Councilor Holt came up beside Sullivan, clearly anxious. “How is he?” His genuine concern softened Sullivan slightly, as it reminded him that Holt saw Drake as he did: a friend and compatriot, whose death they would mourn.
Sullivan answered quietly, “Not good.”
The two of them watched as the movement of the doctors began to slow down, until finally all paused in a somber moment. The head physician took off his mask and walked out of the room. “Forgive me, Emperor…Councilor…but there was nothing we could do. The bullet penetrated deep, and the damage was irreparable. I’m sorry, sir. Councilor Drake is dead.”
The doctor walked back into the operating room, leaving Sullivan and Holt frozen with disbelief. For as long as they could remember it had always been the three of them. They were first among the Ruling Council in the World System, and the recognized figureheads of the empire: a triumvirate of sorts with Sullivan at the head. The separation had been bigger than any one of them; it was their collective dream.
Now all that was gone. The great three had been reduced to two.
Holt was solemn as he spoke, “We must inform the others.”
Emperor Sullivan didn’t think he could stomach another meeting of the High Council at the moment. What was this he was experiencing? Such a heavy sense of loss, unlike anything he could remember feeling since…
He turned abruptly to Councilor Holt, “You see now what we’re up against, Christopher. Do you really want to give our lands back into the hands of the people? It will take the absolute control of an Empire to subdue the World System. Anything less and we lose, old friend. Alexander will restore his hold on the world and we will all end up in graves next to Councilor Drake. Is that your idea of redemption?”